


The Dress

by PhryneFicathon, Yeoyou



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Not completely canon compliant, Phryne's deadly sartorial arsenal, smitten kitten Jack Robinson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-02-23 15:04:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13192647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhryneFicathon/pseuds/PhryneFicathon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeoyou/pseuds/Yeoyou
Summary: Smitten Kitten Jack Robinson thought himself prepared for Phryne's sartorial arsenal only he obviously wasn't. [MFMM Ficathon 2017]





	The Dress

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hot_elf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hot_elf/gifts).



> Written for an image prompt of a lovely dress which I tried to manip onto Phryne's body...
> 
>  

He thought he was prepared by now for Phryne's sartorial arsenal. The luxurious fabrics, satin gliding over her body with every move, furs framing her lovely face, begging, tempting to be touched. Jewellery made of diamonds and sapphires that burnt with an inner fire just like their wearer. He thought that he has seen it all. The lethal dresses full of feminine power, the flowing folds of trousers, the practical yet stylish clothes she dons for more dangerous missions. He has seen the kaleidoscope of colours and patterns to bedazzle all senses and has grown used to it.

But this is new.

The dress looks like a starlit meadow wrapped around a goddess. Heavy, midnight blue fabric caresses Phryne's body, kisses her skin where he can not, tempting him. Ornamental Stones, arranged in lines and flowers, sparkle in the candle light like stars and moons in his own private heaven. The dress is knee length but Mrs Stanley certainly wouldn't have approved the fact that those last couple inches consist of nothing but beaded strings so that Phryne's shapely legs are glimpsed far too often for his sanity.

The dress is an invitation. It is an alluring dream that whispers of midnight strolls and kisses in the dark. It murmurs daring thoughts into his brain, his muscles, his fingertips, until they all tingle with an excitement he knows is dangerous.

When she moves, time and space seem to contract around her, the centre not only of attention but the world itself. Or maybe that is just his blood singing silly songs in his veins of lust and poetry. She is only a mortal woman after all. And yet she's usurped that centre spot in his own world. Has become the gravity he bends to, the guiding needle on his compass. Has become The Woman and suddenly he is all man. It's simple biology perhaps. But the seeming simplicity hides treacherous depths and complications like the surface of a calm sea. It's boiling underneath. Undercurrents pulling everything in one direction and it is futile to struggle.

The room is warm, sticky, and stifling. Too many candles, too many people, not enough air. His tie is choking him. Probably the cause of his rapidly unravelling sanity. That and the lethal dress that taunts him.

It is all too easy to forget that they are not alone, all the other faces blurs at the edge of his vision. Smudges of flesh, of hair, of fabric that momentarily obstruct his view of Phryne and don't matter. Hardly real, hardly alive. Hardly there at all. They are but static.

His legs feel too light, too heavy, he isn't sure which. Each step forward a challenge and a necessity. Not to mention stupid. He knows that. Isn't that far gone yet. A spectator in his own head watching himself stride with singular purpose across the dance floor. But he can't turn himself back and neither does he truly want to. It is easy to let go if gravity catches you.

Her skin is warm as he touches her wrist, takes her hand. Eyebrows lifted in surprise, her mouth a perfectly red 'O'. He wants to kiss that mouth but for now it is enough to feel the warmth of her fingers, gripping his lightly. There's no resistance as he pulls her away from the other guests, as he draws her body close. The fabric of the dress is cool and smooth under his fingertips, belies the heat of skin hidden beneath it. The beads tinkle with every move.

Her face is a mixture of emotions, delight and astonishment, hope and insecurity. They're fleeting expressions, soon collected under a pleasant smile, but he has seen them. Safely stored away in his memory.

It's difficult to concentrate on the music. He'd rather have no eyes nor ears but for her. But he doesn't want to look like a fool next to the most ravishing woman in the room. He doesn't want to look the fool in front of Phryne.

Never mind that he feels like one. If he wasn't a rational man he would be convinced that she bewitched him somehow. That those eyes sparkle with magic, that the dress is woven from dreams and desires, intended to enthrall every man who beholds the woman wearing it. But he is a rational man and he does not believe in hocus pocus and so there is only one conclusion to arrive at, one motive for the pounding blood in his body and the singing of his soul: love.

He loves the Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher and though he can not say when he has fallen, he definitely knows that he has arrived in Love. Next stop unknown. And maybe it doesn't matter, maybe it isn't all that frightening when Phryne looks at him with that genuine warmth and affection under the usual flirtatious facade. Maybe it is enough to just enjoy her moving in perfect harmony with him, the readiness to follow him wherever he leads her. Perhaps even beyond the confines of the dance floor. It seems possible. Now that he holds her, smells her, breathes her in. Anything seems possible now.

Time swirls, time stops, time has never seemed so meaningless as they twirl across the dance floor and she never looks away from his face. Maybe they have both been bewitched or why else would the Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher gaze into his eyes with that smile playing over her lips, her focus only on him. He is not one of her flirts even though she flirts with him often enough. He knows her too well for that, is too much ingrained into her every day life. Phryne prefers men she won't miss when she lets them go, that won't rip a hole into her routine when they leave. He is not such a man although the fact that he is not has less to do with how he is and more with how Phryne let him into her life, how she has claimed and collected him just like the other people she cares about. That she loves.

When the music stops, they both know that the true dance is just beginning.


End file.
